"Mate, I’ve been thinking about my financial wellbeing", is a phrase you won’t hear someone telling their good friend on a Sunday afternoon BBQ.
It’s just not how people talk to each other about money, or well, anything. But years ago when I was co-designing a fintech app it was the term everyone was using. I mean, how could you be working in that space if you weren’t about financial wellbeing?
Let me tell you about how I was taken in by industry jargon - and the need for me to feel accepted by others in this new space - and it was only when I learned to listen to my users and customers and let go of this that things started to make sense.
For starters, I’ll concede Financial Wellbeing is a nice concept.
From a definition by ANZ bank via the great not-for-profit Good Shepherd:
"Financial wellbeing is the extent to which someone is able to meet all their current commitments and needs comfortably and has the financial resilience to maintain this in the future."
Nothing technically wrong with that, it does what it says on the tin.
But when we anchored our strategy, product, marketing and other work to it - we moved further away from our customers without realising it. Turned out we just weren’t meeting people where they were, which I discovered over time through countless user and customer conversations.
Firstly, anything wellbeing is an outcome we desire for others. But it’s often not related to the problem people are facing in that moment. Yes, you might want to cut down on your spending, find ways to save money on your groceries, wonder about how to save for the next holiday. But all of that is a long way from overall financial wellbeing. And that’s assuming it can be attained at all, which for many of our users was unlikely to happen in the longer term.
What worked was listening to feedback and working back from the problems users were facing in the short term. Nudging users to set a savings goal worked well, as did cutting down on a spending category. But once we entered into the territory of setting a budget, things got harder again.
I think best practices, jargon and ideal states are decent starting points. In fact, by doing so we set the Big Hairy Audacious Goal that startups are encouraged to strive for.
And that’s OK - but the market gets to decide what it wants and doesn’t want and when and where it wants it. They do that by living their lives, facing and trying to solve some problems and ignore or accept others. They just don’t walk around with mental models in terms of jargon, best practices and the like. Ask doctors who successful they are at nudging their patients to take even small actions to improve their health. Such is the human condition.
I learned that if the aim of your product or service is to help solve a problem, you’ve got to start by talking their language, not yours. Setting a savings goal isn’t financial wellbeing. But it might be the first step towards it, and it’s a step users were willing to take.
So by all means start with the big idea. But talk to people and find your version of the savings goal: the first step your customers will take on their own terms. Build from there, and hold your ideals loosely.